Global Investing

As George Bush might say, the EU is addicted to Russian energy. While no member wants to kick the habit totally, Brussels would like the bloc to reduce its growing dependence.

Even before Moscow invaded Georgia, the main non-Russian route for exporting Central Asian and Azeri crude and gas to Europe, the EU watched Russia’s regular cuts in energy supplies to neighbours with concern.

But EU members have been reluctant to take the hard measures that would allow them to bypass Russia, so analysts think their reliance on Moscow will grow.

What should European countries to ensure it has sufficient oil and gas in the future? 

Should EU nations be prepared to put cash behind its energy diversification goals?

Do oil price spikes cause recessions? It is a controversial question and one that is very much a propos. It is all very chicken-and-egg, of course. If oil is soaring because of overheating economic demand, is it the demand or the ensuing rise in oil prices that causes the crash?

Britain’s Centre for Economic Policy Research has had a go at trying to answer this with a report written by Natalie Chen and Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick and Liam Graham from University College London. The twist was that the academics used terrorist incidents as an instrumental variable. Roughly, they looked at the impact of a sharp rise in oil prices on the profitability of various industries. By using terrorist events, they stripped out macroeconomic drivers and focused on something that was separate from the business cycle.

The last-minute collapse of the 12 billion pound sale of British Energy to EDF raises the question of how well banks behind the deal were plugged in with major shareholders, who ended up vetoing the acquisition.

Having worked on a sale for months, banks were told by private shareholders EDF’s bid of around 775 pence per share was too low. The news clearly left all the parties in disarray.

Such deals are always risky, but the withdrawal of major British Energy shareholders after months of haggling over the price suggests a full-blown row. After all, an indication of where the price was heading had been floating around for at least a week.

A dramatic last-minute hitch to plans for France’s EDF to buy British Energy leaves managements, shareholders and especially the British government in a quandary.

It was a 12 billion pounds ($24 billion) deal that was supposed to relaunch Britain’s nuclear energy programme. Everyone had been told to expect it. In fact, the collapse of talks came too late for French newspapers, several of which had been briefed on the deal and splashed it prominently on their front pages on Friday.

In end, however, big insitutional investors persuaded British Energy to reject EDF’s offer as low-ball, despite the best endeavours of the British government, with a 35-percent stake.